When a US county tried to regulate smoking in private homes a few years ago, the result was international ridicule.
But that was just a minor setback in the anti-tobacco movement's powerful and growing momentum across the US.
The latest success came on Tuesday when voters in the West Coast state of Washington approved a sweeping ban on smoking in indoor public spaces, including most bars, restaurants, casinos and bowling alleys.
US smokers are used to huddling outside in blinding snow or blazing heat to light up. Now it gets worse. Washington's ban also applies within eight meters of doors, windows and air intakes for public places -- so tobacco smoke doesn't waft inside.
The detailed stay-away zone has gotten Washington's clean-air measure billed as one of the toughest in the US. In a politically polarized nation, few themes unite voters like the fight against cigarette and cigar haze.
"The momentum is building, not only at the state level but in many, many cities across the country," said William Corr of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a leading US anti-smoking group.
New York, once a city of smoky jazz clubs and gritty urban pride, became an unlikely trailblazer against the urge to light up when it outlawed smoking in all indoor public places in early 2003.
Business leaders fiercely fought the ban, saying it would hurt tourism and nightlife, but most studies have found the economic damage was minimal. Now, the Big Apple is credited with inspiring smoking bans in Boston and even in European bastions like Ireland and Italy.
US cities including Washington and Philadelphia are considering similar restrictions. Meanwhile, tobacco tax hikes have pushed the price of a New York pack of cigarettes to US$6 or more.
The next big push will likely be to extend smoking bans further into the public space.
"We are hearing increasingly loud complaints from people that they shouldn't have to walk through a cloud of smoke to their residences," Corr said.
The US government and top medical groups point to the obvious health benefits of protecting people who don't smoke against fumes.
But the trend has also taken bizarre twists.
In February, a Virginia mother pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of smoking to avoid 10 days in jail for lighting up in front of her children, aged 8 and 10.
Montgomery County, a Washington suburb, made headlines in 2001 with a radical move against smoking in private homes. Anyone whose smoke offended neighbors would have risked a US$750 fine under the plan, which was quickly withdrawn.
"We've become the laughing stock of the world," county council member Michael Subin said at the time.
In California, cigar-loving governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has angered the state's anti-tobacco movement by keeping a smoking tent outside his capital office, to circumvent an absolute ban on smoking in state government facilities. The actor-turned-politician insists he needs the space for political dealmaking.
Of course, Schwarzenegger is in the minority. These days, Americans are probably more likely to see people puffing a cigarette in old movies than on the street.
About 22.5 percent of adults, or 46 million people, smoke cigarettes in the US, official data show, compared with more than 40 percent in the 1960s.
Smoking is blamed for killing more than 400,000 US residents a year, mainly from lung cancer and heart disease. Annual smoking-related health care costs are estimated at US$89 billion.
Foes of the Washington measure mounted a feebly financed challenge, saying the state is using public health arguments to discriminate against smokers and trample private property rights.
"Should we ban deep-fried food? Should we ban Big Macs?" smokers' rights advocate Dave Wilkinson told the Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane.
Then there's the question of enforcement, which conjures up images of police officers patrolling air vents outside restaurants with a measuring tape to enforce the eight-meter exclusion zone.
Mayor Kim Wheeler of Ruston, a small town near Seattle, snapped that "My police are not going to go out there and be the cigarette police."
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